Regardless of any fan’s personal feelings about the project, it seems Fox is going ahead with its Plant of the Apes prequel film. In fact, today it was announced that Spider-Man’s James Franco has been cast as the lead in the film, now entitled Rise of the Apes.
As we mentioned previously, Rupert Wyatt is handling the directing duties of a script by Amanda Silver & Rick Jaffa. The story of Rise of the Apes concerns a scientist (Franco) who has been working on a cure for Alzheimer’s which is being tested on apes. The main test ape named Caesar starts to evolve rapidly due to the drug, and the scientist takes him home to live with him to protect him from cruel doctors.
Of course, as Caesar evolves he begins to realize that captivity isn’t for him and instead, he will rise up to lead his fellow apes to freedom. This story will show the modern day events that eventually lead to the apes dominating the human race as seen in the classic original Planet of the Apes films.
It will feature cutting edge ape effects by WETA Digital and will, for the first, time, have apes in it that are completely computer generated instead of being portrayed by actors in make-up. Could be cool, especially if there ends up being a bunch of great ape vs. man conflict.
Rise of the Apes will shoot this summer in British Columbia for a projected release on June 24, 2011.
